Kategoria BISAC: Social Science >> Penology

This book explores the cultural and political significance of ostracism in democratic Athens. In contrast to previous interpretations, Sara Forsdyke argues that ostracism was primarily a symbolic institution whose meaning for the Athenians was determined both by past experiences of exile and by its role as a context for the ongoing negotiation of democratic values.

The first part of the book demonstrates the strong connection between exile and political power in archaic Greece. In Athens and elsewhere, elites seized power by expelling their rivals. Violent intra-elite conflict...

The Society of Captives, first published in 1958, is a classic of modern criminology and one of the most important books ever written about prison.

Gresham Sykes wrote the book at the height of the Cold War, motivated by the world's experience of fascism and communism to study the closest thing to a totalitarian system in American life: a maximum security prison. His analysis calls into question the extent to which prisons can succeed in their attempts to control every facet of life--or whether the strong bonds between prisoners make it impossible to run a prison without...

On January 11, 2003, Illinois Governor George Ryan--a Republican on record as saying that "some crimes are so horrendous . . . that society has a right to demand the ultimate penalty"--commuted the capital sentences of all 167 prisoners on his state's death row. Critics demonized Ryan. For opponents of capital punishment, however, Ryan became an instant hero whose decision was seen as a signal moment in the "new abolitionist" politics to end killing by the state.

In this compelling and timely work, Austin Sarat provides the first book-length work on executive clemency. He turns...

In Punishment in America Michael Welch gathers together his seminal contributions to the most crucial and controversial issues in criminal justice. Topics range from the war on drugs, boot camps and institutional violence, to AIDS and HIV, capital punishment and the entire corrections industry.

This coherent, but critical vision of punishment and corrections emphasizes social control but takes account of key social forces such as politics, religion and morality.

Despite the fact that 160,000 people are locked up in our federal correctional facilities, practical information about the federal prison system remains difficult to locate. While some information may be found scattered on the Internet, in directions given at court, or through shared personal experience, there is no single source available that is a collection of all available information. The U.S. Federal Prison System is the first comprehensive reference work that includes official prison policies, first-person accounts from prisoners, and information about each federal...